Report: North Korea calls for more dialogue amid tensions

North Korea on Saturday urged better ties with South Korea, warning that a war in the peninsula would amount to a “nuclear holocaust,” South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported.

“Confrontation between north and south should be defused as early as possible,” the North said in a New Year’s editorial, according to Yonhap. “If a war breaks out on this land, it will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust.”

North Korea said it avoided a war last year because it persevered, but called for “an atmosphere of dialogue and cooperation” this year, Yonhap said.

Yonhap said the editorial is considered “a blueprint for Pyongyang’s policy goals.”